The Conundrum looks at how information is received, interpreted and transformed during communication. Rather than viewing artistic practice as a form of unique individual expression, The Conundrum asserts that art is a form of communication, and that a key element of creative practices is the act of translation. The translator consciously collects, interprets and recombines information in a process of evolution. In order to demonstrate how ideas are understood, and to partake in a continuum of knowledge, a story is told, edited, and told again in a different way. Through reconfiguration and retelling, different stories and ideas are revealed, and a more complex, irreducible body of knowledge is developed.

This body of work takes information and ideas from disparate sources, and brings them together as a fragmented, yet unified, whole. As a result, The Translator’s Conundrum acts as a form of ideological collage. Rather than striving for the creation of something completely unique, this work strives to look at old information in new ways. As such, reconfiguration is both the process, and subject matter, of The Translator’s Conundrum. On the one hand, it looks at information to affirm and support, and on the other, to question and challenge.

Notions of identity and difference are explored by using images of animals. In this context, animals provide a connection to the natural world, or to an understanding of the natural world. Images of animals, through their difference from humans, help to articulate and define concepts of both ‘sameness’ and ‘otherness.’ By including natural elements in a culturally-determined setting, The Conundrum questions the division of nature and culture into separate entities. Instead of asking whether behaviour and identity are based on biological or cultural determinants, assuming the two are opposites, this work suggests that nature and culture are part of a complex, interwoven continuum.